In healthcare, a catheter is used to provide an access to the human body for delivery of medicinal drugs, parenteral nutrition, blood or blood components or other liquids. The latter is typically used for patients that are ill or during the performance of surgical procedures. Depending on the type of liquid that needs to be delivered and sometimes also depending on the patient or his/her medical condition, different catheters and different methods of applying them can be selected.
A first type of catheter is the peripheral venous catheter. This catheter is inserted in a peripheral vein. A second type of catheter is a midline catheter. Such a catheter typically is between 8 and 25 cm long and is often placed in an upper arm vein. A third type of catheter is a central venous catheter which is placed into a large vein.
Still other types of catheters are peripherally inserted central catheters, tunnelled catheters, drainage catheters and port catheters. These catheters can be applied at several places on the human body, such as for example in the breast area of a patient.
A large number of patients needs to make use of catheters, such as for example central catheters, tunnelled catheters or port catheters, for a long period, e.g. weeks or months. It often is preferred to make use of a same catheter for a longer time period, as correctly positioning a catheter is time consuming and as replacing or re-introducing a catheter into the human body typically results in additional risks for infections and additional pain for the patient during installing.
A disadvantage of the use of a catheter is that it often limits the patient in actions they can take. For example, washing or taking a shower whilst a catheter or part thereof is applied to the human body may be difficult or impossible as it should under all circumstances be avoided that for example dirt, air or shower water enters the catheter. The latter may prevent proper operation of the catheter and, in some circumstances, could even lead to dangerous or life threatening situations.
In order to avoid such critical situations, often showering is prohibited for patients having a catheter applied. Adequate sealing of the catheter could prevent critical situations and could allow e.g. showering. Nevertheless, efficient and adequate sealing means are not widely spread yet. Often, non-suitable sealing means are applied such as for example non-suitable patches, parts of plastic bags, cling film, parts of plastic gloves, etc. These sealing means result in inaccurate sealing, are difficult to apply, cannot be applied according to standard handling, . . . . Overall, a lot of sealing means that are used in today's practice do not allow to operate according to good medical practice. Some specialised sealing means that have been brought on the market in the past years attempt to overcome these problems.
A first set of examples relates to a bag-type of device that can be placed over the bodily part where the catheter is applied. The exit side of the bag-type device typically is provided with a glue strip to glue the bag to the bodily part. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,720,713, the system is provided with a feedthrough for a catheter, the feedthrough being made in PU foam. Alternatives are also brought on the market whereby the sealing is provided by folds created by folding the bag.
In a second set of examples, a patch is used for covering a catheter for use during bathing. In the example described in US patent application US2008167626, a multi-layered patch is provided whereby in one of the layers a feedthrough for a catheter is provided, the water tightness being provided by the sticking parts of the patch. Often two sticking patches to be applied on top of each other are used, requiring a significant amount of glue and material. Furthermore, it may be difficult to prevent liquid from running along the catheter anyway to enter the shielded area via the catheter. In yet another example, an additional clip is provided for putting it on the catheter and for avoiding that liquid enters the shielded area via the catheter. The latter is for example described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,115.
Some sealing devices have the disadvantage that the catheter needs to be de-coupled before bathing or showering. This de-coupling is a disadvantage, since it should be done by the medical staff, resulting in more time consumption for the caregiver, and a lower autonomy of the patient. Moreover, the decoupling increases the risk of clogging of the catheter and infections.
There is still room for improvement for providing an appropriate sealing.